He Calls Me Charlie
by anonyreaderfan
Summary: A one shot exploration of Charlotte's thoughts when she leaves to find John. She is one of the secondary characters that I really like, but feel the show will never have time to explore. My aim was to make this fit her age and into the storyline without veering from Canon.


Disclaimer: The Tomorrow People is the property of the CW. No copyright infringement is intended.

~ X ~

She was careful to keep her thoughts calm as she crept away from the main areas where the Tomorrow People hung out during their waking hours. She didn't want anyone following her. She went to the place he showed her –– the place near the end of their tiny world. The one that, if you remembered all the twists and turns and hidden doorways, could lead to the surface. It was a secret bolt hole out he had discovered and shared with her.

She had nothing to do. Too young for assignments, bored with the lessons. No one made them as exciting as John. Too often when she played a game with the older ones they would let her win. Like she couldn't see through them? John never let her win. He made her fight for every point and when she won one she felt a deep sense of satisfaction. He said her life depended upon her wits and her ability to strategize, and she knew he was right.

There was no one here she had any kind of meaningful connection with. She felt older than most of them even though age wise she was the youngest by a number of years. The Citadel had forced an early maturity on her. She had seen and experienced more pain and death then most of these so called older wiser people.

These people who feared a shadowy Ultra and bragged because they had escaped its clutches. Only someone who had been in their clutches––only someone who had seen and experienced what she had could possibly relate to her feelings.

They told the same stories over and over again. "Yeah, the van pulled up and three agents piled out. I was so scared––then John or Cara or Russell or different combinations of the same three showed up and rescued me. Blah—blah —blah."

She felt bad mocking them, realizing that to them it was trauma, but at the same time she listened to their stories with scorn. The same stories were retold and embellished until she wanted to stomp her feet and say, "Can't you find anything new to talk about?" She tried to be patient knowing once they were isolated and safe down here there was little to do, but relive their moments of glory. Sometimes she wished one of them had been captured. Then they would really have something to fear, something to talk about. But as soon as she thought that she was ashamed of herself.

She especially hated the ones who said John rescued them. In her mind she wanted to scream at them. _Yeah . . . he rescued you but that didn't stop you from voting him out as the leader, did it?_

She resented them on his behalf. Didn't they realize how two faced they sounded? Grateful on one hand that John had rescued them, but not seeing that they had betrayed him. Hypocrites–– that's what they were. She avoided Mike once she found out he was the one who instigated the vote to oust John. Especially once she found out that John was involved in his rescue. She knew he was puzzled by her attitude. And she was torn over that too. He was a great guy and tried to be nice to her, but she couldn't help the feeling that being friends with him was being disloyal to John.

Thankful as she was to have a home there were times when she hated all of them. Everyone except John.

John who refused to give up on her. When everyone else wanted her out he stepped up and said he would help her. And he did. Never minding that she drove him to his knees with her uncontrolled screaming, bruising his mind. Never minding that she slammed him into walls until she learned to control herself. He never got angry, never got frustrated even when she was frustrated with herself. He taught her to fight back, to have confidence in herself. To develop her abilities and channel her fear into anger. Not pointless anger––useful anger that allowed her to protect herself and others.

He understood her. She knew he shared things he had seen at Ultra with her, things that he had never shared with anyone else and when she asked him why he said simply, "You have to know that I know what you went through. The others can't. They've never been exposed to this." He had hung his head, hands on his hips, and when he looked back at her there was a pool of sadness in his eyes that she recognized. "And I never want them to know it."

At times she was so moody even she couldn't stand herself. John would call her out on it, joking on one hand that she was in her obnoxious, bratty, snotty girl phase, while at the same time letting her know that it was going to happen. That people who had been through what she had been through were tortured by the horrors of it for a long time after, but he was confident that she could eventually get it under control. And his confidence gave her confidence.

She could tolerate life without him during their day period, but the night hours when most people slept were horrible. She still had nightmares––oh, not as frequent as when she first came and certainly not with the mental screams. But when she had woken shivering with fear in her bed, imagining every noise was Ultra agents creeping down the stairs into their lair she would put the blankets over her head and muffle her sobs with her fist in her mouth.

But he always knew, and he would mentally call out to her, slipping quietly through the night with the stealth he had learned at Ultra. He would come and sit cross legged on the floor by her bed, and she would place a hand in his, and he would comfort her mind to mind until she could fall back to sleep. Now she cowered alone in bed trying to remember the feeling of his long warm fingers closed around her hand and the reassuring thoughts he sent.

_Oh John!_ Every time she thought of him out on the street there was a pain around her heart so constricting she felt it would be crushed.

Let Cara say he could take care of himself, but she knew what happened to the TP that Ultra caught on the streets.

And that was another thing. She was so conflicted about Cara. On the one hand she adored Cara for rescuing her, but on the other hand Cara had pretty much shunted her off to John. She admired her beauty, her strength, the way she dressed. She wanted to look like Cara, walk like Cara, be as confident as Cara, but it was Cara who banished John. Cara who threw him out. She didn't understand this Cara. How could she say that the leader couldn't force him to come back when she was the one who forced him out? It didn't make sense. She felt tears of frustration well up in her eyes again. She angrily dashed them away with the back of her hand. She was mad at herself for not speaking up. She had wanted to confront Cara, but at the last minute backed down. Afraid that she too might be banished like John for speaking her mind. After all, if Russell, John's best friend, wouldn't or couldn't say anything then what could she do? Adults were so confusing.

Everyone talked down to her. They fed her–– there was a word for it. She searched her mind. Platitudes. That was it––they threw her platitudes. "Not this time." "We need you to hold down the fort here." "May be another time." Right. Like there weren't other people older than her that were staying back and were in charge. Really? Did they think she was an idiot and couldn't see through the fact that they didn't want her to come along? That they thought she would be a burden?

She resented the way they brushed her off. Did they forget that she had rescued all of them? That without her they would never have gotten rid of Julian?

John didn't treat her that way. He never talked down to her. If he said 'no', he explained why, in detail, so she understood the situation.

John belonged here. The place wasn't the same without him. John kept the tempo even and flowing. Cara had everyone jumping with huge bursts of activity and then total inaction. Everything seemed to be drama with her where John was so low key.

Charlotte didn't like drama. She had enough drama to last her fifty lifetimes. She didn't like boredom either, but she instinctively knew that there could be something in between.

She wanted security. In her mind John was security. John was stability.

Plus, he called her Charlie. No one had ever called her Charlie before. And when he called her Charlie he always smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. When he said 'Charlie' it made her feel like she was family.

She wanted him back and it was time she took matters into her own hands. If no one else would bring John back then she would.

She wanted, no needed, to hear him call her Charlie and see his smile and watch his eyes crinkle at the corners.

~ FIN ~


End file.
